In 2023, the area of ​​rainforests will shrink by the size of Switzerland.

In 2023, the world’s tropical forests were once again shrinking at a rate of ten football fields per minute – despite a slowdown in logging in Brazil and Colombia. About it it says in a study by the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland.

Over the past year, 3.7 million hectares of tropical forests were destroyed. It’s a little less area Switzerland or Bhutan. Forests that contain climate change and preserve biodiversity are burning and being cut down for agricultural land: plowing and pastures.

Thanks to the policies of the Brazilian and Colombian authorities, the area of ​​forests destroyed in them during the year decreased significantly – by 36% and 49%, respectively. However, their gains were offset by rising deforestation in Bolivia, Nicaragua and other countries.

“The world has taken two steps forward and two steps back in terms of forest loss in 2023,” says Michaela Weiss, director of forest monitoring at the World Resources Institute.

Brazil remains the leader in deforestation. It is followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bolivia, half of whose forest losses were caused by fires.

At the UN climate conference in Dubai in December 2023, governments committed to halting and reversing forest loss and degradation by the end of this decade. However, data shows that the world is far from this goal, with annual rainforest losses showing little change.